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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29673558">The Return</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abli8561/pseuds/Abli8561'>Abli8561</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Law &amp; Order: SVU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:13:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29673558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abli8561/pseuds/Abli8561</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Walking out of her Life all those years ago, he returns and needs to ask for her help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Return</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi this is not only my first ever FanFic but it is also my first ever piece of writing<br/>for anyone over the age of 3 to read (eeek)<br/>I really want to learn, improve and develop so I appreciate any comments that can<br/>help me with this. I'm a sensitive soul so I'm preparing my ‘thick skin’ for any feedback or comments that would help.<br/>Also there will be grammar mistakes and typos. I couldn't read it through anymore as<br/>the nerves were getting to me and I just needed to bite the bullet and upload or I never would. (eye rolls)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chapter One</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Liv....Liv?" </p>
<p>She recognises that voice, mentally preparing herself she looks up, pulls the glasses from her face, sweeps the dark strands of hair that are threatening to obstruct her gaze to behind her left ear and just stops.  Without warning she feels an onset of pains inside of her chest, racing through her entire upper body, her hands are drawn to place themselves over where she believes these new thuds are coming from….her heart.<br/>
Everything she’s been through, all the perps she’s interrogated, all the threats she’s received, all the times she’s had control taken from her: Oregon, Sealview, Lewis, flashbacks, nightmares, Lewis again, that damn un-necessary house incident and then the rest, all of them had caused her distress, panic even terror but none had caused actual heart palpitations, not until now that is. </p>
<p>"EL....Elliot.... I, just, what's going on?" The shock taking control of any words that came out of her mouth, granted, there was never going to be a short snappy sentence that defined all her feelings but yet also asked all of the harboured questions from the last 10 years but somehow she had always imagined it would have been a lot better than that. The heaviness in her chest is now slightly subsiding  still, she needs the aid of the desk to hold her weight steady as she rises.<br/>
This cannot be happening.</p>
<p>There he is, head to toe in grey material. Very smart, tailored suit trousers that looked like they would definitely hug him in all the right places, if it wasn't for the fact he was facing her and wore a charcoal, single breasted woollen overcoat. It brought a sense of maturity to the older image of the man in front of her. His hair was still short, more greyed than previous but it kept in line with the rest of his appearance. The chiselled jawline and clean shaven face with those bright blue naturally attention seeking eyes were still the same, albeit the odd fine line was across his face but he hasn’t aged half as much as she’d imagined he would have. He typically was looking just Perfect standing there...leaning against the doorway to the office, smiling right at her.  </p>
<p>If it wasn't for the piercing thunderbolt that just ripped through her heart she more than likely would have been seething to find him casually smiling at her after all these years, How could he think it appropriate, in this moment, to be smiling?<br/>
She's shaking, her body physically trembling, her blood shot eyes desperately holding back her emotionally drenched tears.<br/>
She sees his eyes widen and his mouth begins to part but she can’t allow him to speak- her head is fuzzy with rage and her body takes on a life of itself as she finds herself propelling towards him, stopping just, in close enough proximity to smell that familiar scent of the same aftershave from many years ago.</p>
<p>"All these years Elliot, all these years, not a phone call, a text, an email, nothing and you waltz back in here, standing there....smiling?” the loudness and antagonism of her voice tears into him before she seems to gather herself and trail off into a softer tone. The quick shuffle of flustered movements coming from the outside of the office, alerts both of their pre-occupied attentions to the fact that they are not alone and that this long anticipated ‘reunion’ isn’t happening privately. </p>
<p>Elliot looks back at the squad in the room behind him, specifically catching the eye of his old colleague, he’s looking for some form of support from him but as he had already anticipated, he doesn’t deserve that now. The man just disapprovingly shakes his head and bows down into his laptop saying<br/>
"This is not gonna be good" </p>
<p>Yeah, you’re probably right about that Fin<br/>
His final thought as he steps in and shuts the door, to the office of the now Captain Olivia Margaret Benson.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>××××××××××××××× </p>
<p>"Oh hell, ..Fin..really? You just let him walk up there, right past us, you not wanna stop him? Give Liv a heads up maybe?” The blonde’s exasperated demeanour is emphasised by the throwing of her arms into the air and nodding questionably towards him.  </p>
<p>"Hey manda, how you think I'm gonna do that, the dude walked straight through here and up to her office- I was in the middle of all that 10 years ago and I ain't going back there unless I have to…<br/>
She's got this Rollins, don't worry. She can handle Stabler and if not...we got her back"<br/>
He looks over towards the office straining for his sight for anything to give himself that bit of reassurance that he’s just promised elsewhere.</p>
<p>"All I'm saying, is I hope you're right Fin. She hasn't spoken about him in years and even though she hasn’t fully opened up about him leaving, I know that emotional door aint closed”<br/>
Amanda continues to gesture her protective emotions towards his desk and the arms are still rising and falling by her sides as she speaks<br/>
“ I remember when I joined this squad, the atmosphere when I started, when Nick started - It wasn’t good Fin, it really took me a while to realise she was hurtin and that person who I’d been introduced to, wasn't who she actually is"<br/>
Amanda turned her back and started heading towards the coffee machine<br/>
"Want anything?" </p>
<p>"Nah, you alright" Fin waved his arm dismissing the offer<br/>
"I get ya manda, I really do, but this is something she gotta sort herself and it was always gonna be messy." </p>
<p>×××××××××××××× </p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm so sorry Olivia, trust me I never meant for it to go on this long, I promise you and I didnt mean to smile,  I just… I missed you, I know I have no right for what I’m about to say but wow, like wow Liv,  just seeing you sat there as Captain, I'm just...Well I'm proud"<br/>
He moves himself further towards her, but instantly halts as he notices the unfamiliar shift in her body, her retreat is in response to his movements and this sharp realisation stops him. Dead in his tracks.<br/>
"Please can we just talk? I really need you"<br/>
He gestures his arm towards the couch placed at the opposite end of her desk, in the hopes she will take a seat and be able to resemble some form of a civil discussion with him.</p>
<p>"You're sorry?" She whispers closing her eyes, shaking her head and pressing her thumb and finger into the bridge of her nose, gently rubbing it in the hope that it will release 10 years of tension, pain and disappointment from her being. </p>
<p>"Trust me, I know I have a lot of explaining to do and I know you have a lot of questions”</p>
<p>Right then she non verbally abruptly cuts him off, holding her hand out in front of him and lowering her head. As furious as she is, she is even more stubborn. He can’t know just yet about how in the beginning she repeatedly checked her phone for messages and calls, when her screen was blank she continuously told herself it was because he was busy or with his family. He can’t know just yet, how she let herself believe he was just taking a little bit of time to think, that he would get back to her and they would chat it through like they always had when something like this happened. He can’t know just yet, how when that didn’t happen she kept telling herself he was dealing with something bigger and that he’d get in touch, because he always did until then he didn’t. The days, the weeks, the months all went by and slowly she had stopped putting all of her hopes into her phone and putting them onto the doorway of the precinct, hoping that he would walk back through them doors, smile at her and tell her he was OK now, he was back.<br/>
He didn't need to know that every time her raised hopes were dashed away, a piece of her heart went with it. </p>
<p>When she’d been told he had put his papers in by Cragen everything was just a blur, the spirit and emotions that made up who she was, had just dissipated into a black void inside of her body and her brain was just filled with this everlasting Fog.<br/>
The dark days, she got through only because she had to, not because she chose to. In the years that past she partially moved on, she had found new lights in her life but she’d never stopped thinking about him. She couldn't allow herself to talk much about Elliot because she needed to keep that protective shield around her and thoughts of him didn't allow for that. The one time she really let her guard down and poured her heart out was to the person she would have least expected and  even to her, she was completely surprised when it all came spitting out in threats of what he would have done.. In those moments of her life she had still truly believed that if anything was going to make him come back to her.. it would be this, she believed it in the transport to the hospital, in the time spent at the hospital, in the nights in Bryans apartment, she even still believed it right through the trial- after all it was public domain, he could have known, he could have seen her press conference to appease Lewis on the news and he could have come to see her.<br/>
Again nothing…..<br/>
That was the final nail in the disappointed coffin of her hopes of him ever coming back to her.</p>
<p>“Liv, you ok?” he places a reassuring hand on her shoulder and looks into her distant eyes.<br/>
Snapping back into realisation, silent minutes have passed, she's allowed her thoughts to run a very quick timeline reviewing all the times she’d thought of this very moment.<br/>
“Yes, sorry... Elliot, I just don’t know what to say to you and I’m not sure what you want me to say?” She's calm and her tone is professional but she knows he can hear the pain instilled in her words.</p>
<p>“Ive missed you so much Liv and If you’d let me, I want to explain everything, but right now I really need your help?” He leans over into himself and rubs his hands across his mouth. He can’t look into her eyes, not right now, not when he’s been missing all these years, not when he knows he’s coming back because he needs to take more from her.<br/>
He’d always dreamt of the day they would see each other again but not like this, not in these circumstances.<br/>
"Liv, Elizabeth got caught up in something and I really need your help?”<br/>
There it is, the look in his eyes, it's more than pain or anxiety... its panic, not panic for himself but for his child. She recognises that look, the look of horror and pure terror, Sheila had introduced her to that.<br/>
This strong, alpha male individual had always been venerable when it came to his kids, rightly so, they were his weak spot, his achilles heel, his chink in the armour.<br/>
The deflated body language showed desperation as he heavily carried himself over to the sofa, he leans back, rubs his hands over his face and expels the air from his lungs in a heavy sigh.</p>
<p>It's difficult for her to witness and she needs to put her own turmoil on hold to be here for him<br/>
"El, no matter what's happened between us, I will always be here to help you, please tell me you know that?" She places herself down beside him and instantly pulls his body into hers. She feels the heat radiating from him, listens to the short, deep, trained breaths he's taking as she positions her head on top of his.<br/>
He wraps both of his arms around her and affectionately submits himself into her embrace, her fragrance is the same as it was all those years ago and it provides the first bit of comfort he's experienced in such a long time. </p>
<p>The temporary resignation of anger, tension and suffrage subsiding from them simultaneously. </p>
<p>Old partners, Old friends, Old Soul Mates.</p>
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